Constancy
by hewhoistomriddle
Summary: In the mafia, growing up is a matter of holding on. Lambo/I-pin, around their twenties.


**Notes: **I'm flying blindly. I have never read a Lambo/I-pin story before I made this, and read only an embarrassingly small portion of the manga, but this pairing and premise got away from me. Maybe later you can expect better characterization that comes from better perception?

**Characters/Pairings: **Vongola, Lambo, I-pin

**Warnings: **Non-canon compliant. OOC. Serious take.

* * *

**Constancy**

_In the mafia, growing up is a matter of holding on.

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_

Lambo remembers an afternoon, misty sunlight filtering agonizingly slow into the house of Sawada, making the air shimmer with bomb-dust and whatnot, the laughter of children spinning, cutting through the hazy stillness. The memory echoes across his ears and drizzles into his bones, filling him with memories of a time when the world was clean, fresh as the spring air, and beautiful.

It is ten years after, and he patiently waits for the chance to experience that blessed existence even just once more. The world is not as it had been, he knows this wholeheartedly, knows it as he sheaths the sidearm – _lightning was forever his weapon of choice, but it was rather too attention-grabbing_ – watches the smoke rising above the shutters and eaves, incandescent by the light passing through the stained windows of the old cathedral.

Lambo is not deeply religious – such things do not survive the mire of mafia tradition and unending bloodshed – but murdering a man in the vicinity of such a place causes something in him to ache.

The light rustle of newspapers lets him know she is just behind him, wearing leather boots the way Chrome used to wear them – under the edge of skirts and all too readily. Those cute patterned ballet flats are all the rage these days and he knows I-pin does not own a single pair. For all its senselessness, it was a shame.

I-pin chucks the paper – _today's, they had bought it not a hour earlier, and it's already outdated _– on a nearby bench, clutching tightly at their Italian-brand coffees in little Styrofoam cups.

She looks at him – her contacts mess it up but he knows the eyes which look to him, _so concerned_, are flawless glitter-black, like the backs of those scarabs so worshipped by Egyptians for their ability to watch the dead. Her expression is set the same as in that sundrenched day they both decided to give up on Valentines chocolate, when he'd stared resentfully at the bright-red-sterling-silver package masterfully coated with fast-acting poison, it asks: _are you all right?_

Lambo takes her cold, pale, little hand clutching the bitter-smelling coffee, and, for a moment, holds it still in his grasp. It fits – _not perfectly, but finely_ – in the hollows of his palm, and he wonders if she can feel his insides tremble and falter just underneath the smooth, stock-still skin.

It is not as bad as it was on his first (successful) kill – a drug dealer back East who went behind the collective back of the Vongola – and it is possible there will once again be a time he will deal it with the same nonchalance as he treated grenades in his childhood. As Vongola Primo knew it, Lambo knew it – written as it was on the skin of his wrists and the blades of his shoulders, etched as more than a hundred marks on his horns, left by the faceless which had fallen before the powerful Vongola – _he will adjust_.

They walk to a car – _his, a sleek and powerful thing of metal and leather, and never smells of bodies in the trunk _– it is from the Bovino, given to him in pride, to replace the skateboards he and I-pin had learned to get by with, for a short while, and outgrew too quickly. The car is bulletproof and armoured as a tank, so Lambo shall never have to relive an icy night with his vision filled with headlights and the daunting _will to live_.

I-pin rides _shotgun _– sometimes _literally_, because while the gyoza-ken is powerful, it cannot puncture tires. She powers up a laptop, hurriedly types her latest extra-credit for the short course she takes in the university – _what for, he does not know_ – it makes up for all the missed classes.

It had been the same back in Japan, whenever it came time for him to earn his Guardian ring – Hibari had always been on their heels for truancy, even though he of all people should know better. Lambo had told her to stay many times, and learn something in the beautiful web called a normal life, but I-pin had only jumped across the rooftops, defying both him and gravity in one fell swoop. Lambo is left with no choice but to follow.

They stop for lunch in a nifty little seaside _cafe _when the sun is at the zenith of the sky, dribbling light over endless, turquoise waters – there is no choice for them but to stop, really, because of this – and the vista of golden sand, and the salty breeze tangling in his tapered fingers and raucous hair.

I-pin asks him if he remembers a place like it - _a cruise ship and a vacation_ - and he nods, even though its one of the many moronic moments of a childhood that feels like snatches of another life.

These _things-with-I-pin_ often feels kinda like that too, because they are – _too frivolous to matter, too fraught with meaning to ignore_ – and so vastly different from anything he'd ever known that it simply does not belong to his life, nor to him. In the world of mafia – as it is with pretty shoes, skateboards, crybabies and candy, regular school attendance, medals of achievement, innocence, and redemption – there should be no stories as sweet as this.

It is a little past five and the long drive is over – the Family should be glad to see them carrying news of another gangland war nipped in the bud – Lambo tarries a while after he parks, an arm slung over I-pin's shoulder, admiring the intimidating steel frames of the half-constructed place. One day he will come home to see a high roof rise to meet with a blood-red sky, the most ornate 'V' at the wrought-iron entrance, the Vongola Decimo's fortress none of them – _Vongola Decimo himself especially_ – ever wanted.

I-pin stays at his compound, has been staying there for a couple of months now – no one has questions this and while everyone refrains from saying anything outright, the truth is _this_: you hurt a member of the Vongola Family, the Vongola family will bury you. And this is if you're lucky.

Lambo remembers the first night – a twilight-colored horizon born of the push-you-up-against-the-wall kind of passion and slow burning rage – it was unexpectedly new, a differently chapter entirely. He remembers hands catching in the poof of his hair, remembers lips smiling against the hollow of his neck as she breathes, the supple skin of her stomach, and really, he's just too far gone to remember anything more.

One time a little after the Vongola changes base, he says out loud, as he and I-pin walk beneath the clear expanse of Italy's blue skies, feelings that typically turn to words like _constancy _and _shared history_ and _us_.

This is what he means: _at every turn there is you. In my life, you are the one thing that is immutable. And as long as I can still feel the beat of your blood, warm and real and humming under your skin, I am never letting go._

He needs not explain, however, this they both understood.

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_End._


End file.
